That Voodoo That You Do

Inc.

What the hell was she doing here?

Her hysteria was shredding what was left of the undertaker’s nerves. There was no telling who he’d shoot. Damn Jessie anyway. How was he supposed to protect her? Ignore that, Luke muttered.

If only that were possible, Epps barked. He jerked open the door, and someone catapulted into the room.

It was the Morton Salt Girl.

She ignored Epps as she marched up to Luke and wagged a finger in his face.

Lucas Tanner, she shouted, How dare you stand me up?

Epps’s face twisted in fury. Miss Maynard, this is a mortuary. We try to maintain a sense of decorum here.

She turned toward the mortician as if she’d just noticed him. Would he attack her? More likely she’d attack him. She was a warrior princess. Luke balanced his weight on the balls of his feet, prepared to intervene, but the elf surprised him. She flashed Epps a smile so bright it reflected off the stainless steel surfaces.

I beg your pardon, Mr. Epps, she said, in a conciliatory voice. I am so sorry for the interruption. But I’m sure you’ll agree that I have a right to be angry. This guy—she jerked her thumb at Luke without taking her eyes off the mortician—was supposed to pick me up forty minutes ago. We’ve got an appointment to get our blood tests.

Epps frowned, apparently as confused as Luke. Blood tests?

For the license, Jessie continued. We agreed to get married the day after Christmas.

That Voodoo

That You Do

by

Ann Yost

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

That Voodoo That You Do

COPYRIGHT © 2016 by Ann Yost

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Contact Information: info@thewildrosepress.com

Cover Art by Kim Mendoza

The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

PO Box 708

Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708

Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

Publishing History

First Crimson Rose Edition, 2009

Second Crimson Rose Edition, 2016

Print ISBN 978-1-5092-1029-9

Digital ISBN 978-1-5092-1030-5

Published in the United States of America

Dedication

To Pete

Chapter One

The rehearsal dinner at the Happy Taco was almost over when the father of the bride asked about his prospective son-in-law.

Where the hell is Kit? Howard Maynard growled. It’s time to make the toast, and he’s been gone for over half an hour.

Jessie Maynard glanced at the empty chair next to her. She ran her tongue over her lips savoring the salt from the Taco’s famous bottomless margarita. The banquet hall swam as she staggered to her feet.

I’m on it, she told her dad. Still clutching her red-and-white checked napkin, she tottered out of the private room into a dimly lit corridor, passed doors labeled Hombres, and Senoritas, and the kitchen that smelled of refried beans. She finally found her fiancé in a deserted phone booth.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t making a call.

He sprawled on the wooden bench, his eyes closed, his handsome features twisted in ecstasy. His fingers, Jessie noted, were fisted in long, silky strands of blonde hair. Jessie watched his head bounce against the phone hard enough to knock the receiver off its cradle. Kit’s whimper of relief triggered a burst of fury in Jessie. She’d believed in him, believed in them. They were colleagues and friends, and she’d thought they could build a decent marriage. A faithful marriage.

The jerk had cheated before the vows.

A gagging sound cut through the red haze of betrayal. It drew Jessie’s gaze and revealed an additional irony. Not only was Kit cheating on his wedding eve, he was doing it with his ex-wife.

Jessie’s eyes met those of her bridesmaid. There really was nothing to say. Following what was left of her instincts, she handed Mary Alice her slightly used napkin.

Keep it, she said. She nodded at the man who had betrayed both of them.

You can keep him, too.

****

The following evening, when she and her new husband should have been winging their way to Bora Bora for a brief, pre-Christmas honeymoon, she was tooling down Interstate 81, heading for Small Town, U.S.A. the home of her late great-aunt Blanche, a woman who’d often provided emotional sanctuary for her via phone and letter. But this time Jessie wouldn’t get the benefit of Blanche Maynard’s no-nonsense philosophy. Great-Aunt Blanche had died several months earlier, and Jessie was going to visit an empty house. Translated, she was just plain running away.

Jessie felt a lightning stab of pain shrouded in disappoint and disbelief. Kit claimed it had been a last, albeit ill-advised, fling. Maybe. They weren’t soulmates. Still, she’d thought they’d have their own version of happily ever after. After a night of the long knives listening to Kit’s apologies and her mother’s rationalizations, after seeing the defeat on her father’s face, she needed a place to regroup. Maybe, even without Blanche’s bracing presence, the peace and quiet of Podunk would help her forget the humiliation, to heal and help her move on.

She realized, with a shock, it would be easier to let go of her faithless fiancé than her self-assigned role as family troubleshooter. She’d failed to bring her shattered relatives back together as a family.

She turned off the interstate at the exit for Mystic Hollow and Gap. She figured the latter didn’t mean the outlet. Half a mile down the two-lane road, she passed a ramshackle string of cabins with a neon rooster and the name Chick Inn. Kit would get a kick out of that. The thought turned to another stab of pain.

Shit. Chicken shit.

A mile later she passed a weather-beaten city limits sign. Mystic Hollow, Population: 3,061.

Make that three thousand sixty. Emotion knifed through her again. This time it was grief. She’d meant to visit Great-Aunt Blanche, but there was always some reason to put it off. Lately, it had been plans for the over-the-top wedding. And maybe because Blanche Maynard, in her wisdom, hadn’t approved of Jessie’s plan to marry her dad’s business partner. Jessie should have listened.

Now Blanche’s empty house would provide a lonely cave while Jessie licked her wounds and tried to figure out what in the hell to do with the rest of her life.

She piloted her cherry red Jeep around a corner, and suddenly, she was in Mystic Hollow. The first thing she saw was the lighted Christmas tree on the town green. She squeezed her eyes and refused to think about spending the holiday alone. Instead she focused on the storybook town with its line of storefronts: Ferguson’s Market; Bexler’s Drugs; The Pink Poodle Hair and Nail Salon; Bell, Book and Candle. She saw crystals hanging in the window along with pentacle-shaped sun catchers. Ah. New Age had come to the sticks.

A homemade banner stretched along the front of a white gazebo on the green opposite the Christmas tree.

Welcome to the First Annual Mystic Hollow Holiday Starlight Festival Celebration featuring a visit from Santa and other entertainment.

Other entertainment? Probably cow chip bingo.

On the far side of the green, a cobblestone church sprawled like a dragon protecting its adjacent cemetery. The white marble headstones bowed in all directions like Chiclets spilled out of a box. It was odd to see the graves here, in the center of town. In the city, the dead were relegated to smooth lawns miles away from humanity.

She pulled up to the town’s lone stoplight just as a tinny version of Purcell’s Trumpet Voluntary made her jump. Damn. She needed to substitute a new ringtone. Something like Your Cheatin’ Heart, or that timeless classic, I Still Miss You Baby, But My Aim Is Getting Better. Jessie punched a button and heard her sister’s voice.

Are you there yet?

Yeah.

What’s it like?

Brigadoon.

Gillian laughed. Still got the gazebo on the town green? The Maynards had spent Christmases with Blanche long ago.

The light changed, and Jessie stepped on the gas.

That was back in the days when we were all happy, Gillian said. Before Dad got so rich.

Jessie shut her eyes. Happiness had eluded Howard and Monica Maynard for a long time. Jessie had hoped to heal her folks with her own marriage.

An outraged bleat snapped her eyelids up like spring-loaded shades, and she stabbed the brake. A tall, angular figure with a cone-shaped face and a long, narrow nose glared at her through the windshield. The crone shook a bony finger at Jessie as she crossed the street and strode onto the green. A shiver ran down Jessie’s spine.

Hell. I almost hit the Wicked Witch of the West.

More like Oz than Brigadoon?

Jessie shook her head, wishing things had been different. Listen, Gil, I don’t think I’ve apologized to you. I know you had to take care of the, uh, loose ends this morning.

Don’t worry about it. Jessie could almost see her beautiful, blonde sister lifting her narrow shoulders in a shrug. Nobody was mad. People love scandal even more than orange blossoms. You can probably even keep the gifts.

The gifts. Jessie groaned. Six hundred people had been invited. She’d be returning gravy boats and blenders for a year.

And anyway, now you don’t have to appear in that designer get-up that made you look like mushroom cloud.

Yeah. Silver lining.

Kit’s still pretty freaked.

It was his choice to trade ownership of Maynard Properties for a blowjob. Jessie heard Gillian’s sigh.

Life isn’t simple.

I can’t take him back. There’s just no way.

I know, but Dad is crushed. He believes you love Kit. It isn’t true, is it? This is another one of your heroic plans to ‘save the family.’

I like Kit, Jessie said, defensively. Make that past tense. I thought we’d do pretty well together.

Jessie? Why didn’t you tell Mom and Dad the truth about why you called off the wedding?

Jessie shuddered as she relived the vision of her handsome ex-fiancé in the tete-a-crotch.

It wouldn’t make any difference. It wouldn’t change anything.

Gillian sighed. I can’t believe you’re trying to protect Kit. What a snake in the grass.

It felt good to feel her sister’s sympathy, but it was time to be honest. He must have known it, too, she said, suddenly.

Known what?

That the marriage was a mistake. That we didn’t love each other and we never would. On some level he was just trying to get us both out of a doomed commitment.

He could’ve just asked for the ring back.

Jessie turned off Main Street onto Cobblestone Lane where five houses faced the green. They were all substantial, elderly homes that had long learned to be comfortable at their place in society, like a gaggle of matronly chaperones at a cotillion.

Christmas is gonna suck without you.

Bleakness surrounded Jessie’s heart. Last year while they were passing around the creamed onions, the squash, and the sliced turkey, Howard Maynard suffered the heart attack that had triggered their parents’ divorce.

This year was supposed to be better.

Mom hasn’t given up, you know. She’s got a short list of bachelors for you to consider. I think Donald Culbertson is at the top because, and I quote, ‘he’s got an MBA, he’s between wives, and he’s used up his trust fund.’

It might work. Donald accepted a bribe to take me to the senior prom.

"You’d be better off with Kit. And to tell you the truth, I think Mom’s still barking up that tree.

They’ve been together all day."

Jessie only half heard her sister as she pulled up to the stone curb in front of number 42 Cobblestone Lane. She sucked in her breath. Blanche had written about her house, but the description hadn’t done it justice. It was late Queen Anne, pink and white with gables and roofs at all elevations, a wide porch whose columns were carved into ornate gingerbread, and a triptych Palladium window. At the top, right in front like the horn of a rhinoceros was a black turret. A witch’s hat. A generous bay window was dark. Suddenly Jessie caught an image of a brightly lit Christmas tree.

Oh my god, Jessie breathed.

What now? Did you hit a munchkin?

Jessie placed her hand on her chest. Her heart trip-hammered. The house. It’s a surprise.

Gillian made a sound. Listen, Jess, I’m gonna get some time off. I can’t bear to think of you all by yourself in that spooky house.

Jessie’s response was immediate and heartfelt. Don’t, Gil. I need some time. I’ve got some things to figure out.

She climbed out of the Jeep, walked up a short path under a natural wood arbor covered with winter-dead grapevines and up a flight of three wide, shallow steps.

She inhaled the mingled scents of fresh, cold air, old house, and something she couldn’t identify. Something that seemed to affect her breathing.

You sure you want to stay alone?

A movement in the gathering twilight made Jessie’s heart jump. She gasped as a tall, masculine figure separated itself from the shadows. He moved with consummate ease and a shiver raced up and down her spine as the porch light went on and hit his face revealing sharply defined angles and darkened circles instead of eyes. Mephistopheles. He stepped closer, and Jessie had to tilt her head back to see him. Her eyes narrowed.

She did not care for tall men. At the moment she didn’t care for any men. And here she was with a squatter. Who are you? She’d hoped to sound intimidating, and she was disgusted at the slight tremor in her voice.

The man stepped closer, and Jessie could make out long, dark lashes, incongruous in that harsh, unsmiling masculine face.

Aren’t you supposed to be smoking a hookah when you ask that?

She planted her free hand at her waist. Great. A squatter with a sense of humor.

Jessie? Who’re you talking to? Gillian sounded worried.

Her sister’s voice brought her back to earth. This guy must be the caretaker her dad had hired.

Jessie? Who’s there?

The hired help, she told her sister. The man’s eyes flashed, and she realized they were the color of kryptonite. Listen, Gil, she said, swallowing with difficulty, I’ll call you back. She pressed off.

The guy loomed. Anxiety formed a lump in her stomach. She needed him to leave.

I won’t be needing your services anymore, she said with what she hoped was confidence. I’m moving in.

A strange look passed over his face. His nose was too hawk-like to be handsome, and his jaw looked like it had broken a fist or two in the past. She tried not to look intimidated even when he failed to reply.

I imagine you have somewhere to go tonight, right?

I’m not moving out.

She felt a faint sweat break out on her forehead and a sudden fierce need to get this guy off her porch. She glared at him. I’m Jessie Maynard, she informed him, and this house belongs to my family.

He nodded. Half of it. The other half belongs to me. I’m Luke Tanner, Blanche’s foster son.

The black sheep foster son. Jessie gaped at him.

The bad seed.

He nodded. For all that he was tall and lean, she could see the strong muscles in his neck. That’s me.

Shame washed over her. She couldn’t believe she’d been so rude.

Not that Aunt Blanche ever called you that. He shrugged as if it didn’t matter.

How come my dad doesn’t know about you owning half the house?

Maybe because he didn’t bother to come to the funeral.

Guilt that had been gathering for weeks overflowed and swept through Jessie’s insides. The Maynards had been totally focused on the big wedding. The guilt made her tone sharp. I suppose you were here.

Not until after.

She heard the pain in the brief answer even before his eyes darkened. He felt guilty, too. They had something in common. That should have made him seem more human.

Too bad it didn’t.

Jessie glanced at the house and then back at Blanche’s foster son. He looked about as movable as Mount Everest. Maybe she should get back in the Jeep and head back to the Chick Inn. Just for the night. She knew she couldn’t do that. Retreat would send the wrong message. If she wanted to lick her wounds at Great-Aunt Blanche’s house, she’d have to suck it up and lay her claim.

It’s a big house. I’ll stay out of your way if you stay out of mine, he said. He didn’t wait for a response. I’ll get your bags. He strode down the path, opened the hatchback, and extracted her yellow suitcase.

What’ve you got in here? Bricks?

She let out a helpless, hopeless giggle as she remembered. Lingerie and cruise wear. I’m supposed to be on my honeymoon.

****

Luke had felt restless all day. He hated being back in Mystic Hollow where everything from the gazebo in the town square to Blanche’s big Victorian house reminded him of how he’d let everyone down. Blanche. Crystal. Even himself.

He wanted to take a run to let off some steam, but he didn’t. The sixth sense he couldn’t seem to shake, told him she’d be here soon.

He threw on his battered black leather jacket and paced the length of the wrap-around porch that hugged the house. As usual, when he was in Mystic, he couldn’t breathe. He thought longingly of his sparsely furnished apartment in D.C., of the solitude and peace. He didn’t know when he’d get back. Days, maybe. More likely a week.

He cursed under his breath. He had no choice. He owed Blanche, and this was his last sorry chance to repay her.

Too bad she’d asked him to babysit.

Luke’s eyes narrowed as the red Jeep tooted around the corner. He stifled a groan as he watched the driver park and climb out. Christ, she was short. Just a kid. Her mass of curls barely reached the roof of the car. Like every female he saw these days, she had a cell phone glued to her ear, and despite the chilly weather, she was wearing some kind of loose fitting pajama-like outfit.

What did she think this was? A health spa?

She marched up the short walk, a woman on a mission. He listened to her voice as she spoke into the phone. It was low, a little husky, like pebbles brushing against each other in a shallow steam. Strangely compelling, at least until she spotted him. Then it was more like black ice.

While she glared at him, he found himself staring into a pair of wide, whiskey-colored eyes. She wasn’t beautiful like Crystal. Her face was softly rounded without the razor-sharp cheekbones of his ex. Her straight nose was sprinkled with freckles and short had been a euphemism. He had her by at least a foot.

Blanche had sent him an elf.

A clueless one.

Luke sucked in a breath.

Blanche had been right about the babysitter. He just wished it didn’t have to be him. He let his gaze drop, and it hovered around her sandal-clad feet. He knew she’d come from Chicago. What was wrong with her brain?

Sinful strawberry, she said, helpfully.

What’re you talking about?

"You were looking at my